


Bean Plants

by Mad_Birdy



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Fluff, Gen, M/M, domestic AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2019-04-30 11:05:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14495574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mad_Birdy/pseuds/Mad_Birdy
Summary: Sam and Gadreel Winchester are teachers at Lebanon's public school. They decide to form a family, but not in the conventional way.





	Bean Plants

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Gadreel's Gigs Challenge 2016. Just a fluffy domestic AU.

The hallways are quiet as the tall man walks down them. He hums softly to himself, an absent-minded quirk that has a lot of high schoolers calling him “Sinatra” as a joke. He has a lot of nicknames at the school, actually; it’s what comes of being one of the well-liked teachers. Unlocking his door, he flips the light switch and smiles when the harsh fluorescent light filters through the green paper he’s taped over the bulbs. Minutes pass by as he prepares for the Monday ahead.

Then… the first patter of footsteps echoes down the hallway. The bus that brings the children from the orphanage has arrived, and they’re going down to the cafeteria for the free breakfast the state pays for. But one set of footsteps heads for his classroom, and another smile crosses his face when he hears the small knock at the door. “Come in,” he says.

“Good morning, Mr. Dree.” The voice belongs to a young girl, one of his students. He turns from the whiteboard to smile at her.

“Good morning, Eden,” he says. “How are you?”

“I’m good.” She returns his smile, a few teeth missing on the sides. “I brought you a pear, and an apple for Coach Sammy.” He crouches down to be on her level and accepts the fruit she holds out to him.

“Thank you, that’s very sweet of you. Did you buy these yourself?”

She nods, then tilts her head. “Well, sorta. I helped Miss Perkins with the shopping yesterday and she said I could have whatever I wanted since I was being such a help. So I asked for these.”

He frowns slightly. “Didn’t you get anything for yourself?”

“Oh, yes! I got a banana for me. They’re easy.” She opens her mouth and points to her missing teeth, and he smiles.

“Good, I’m glad you got something for yourself too. Now why don’t you put your backpack away and go have some breakfast, okay?” She nods and smiles, carefully putting her backpack in its designated cubby before hurrying back out of the room to the cafeteria.

Gadreel Winchester stands, smiling softly still as he looks at the fruit in his hand. He’s been teaching at Lebanon Elementary School for five years now, and today is the first day he’s been given fruit by a student. He pulls his phone from his pocket as he goes to his desk, sitting in the chair behind it and texting “Coach Sammy”.

Eden got me a pear. >

< Awww that’s so sweet of her!

And she got you an apple. >

< Really?

She said it was for “Coach Sammy” so… >

< I’ll stop by to get it at lunch.

All right. >

< She’s such a sweetheart. Why haven’t we adopted her yet?

Because we haven’t had a discussion about adopting her. >

< Gadreel… I love you, but you need to learn the subtleties of a joke conveyed through text message.

< Unless you don’t want me to be joking about adopting her?

We’ll discuss it later. School is about to begin. Don’t you have a class to teach? >

< :P

Gadreel smiles at the emoticon response and tucks his phone back into his pocket just as the first bell rings and his students start to file into his classroom.

~~~

“Okay, is everyone ready?” Gadreel asks. “You’ve all put your wet paper towels into the cups?” Each of his students nods and he continues. “All right, the next step is to take a bean, and place it between the cup and the towel, like this.” He holds up the cup he’s demonstrating with and places a single bean in it, wedging it gently against the plastic. “There’s plenty of seeds, put as many as you like in your cups, but don’t crowd them.”

The children put the seeds in their cups, talking amongst themselves as they do so. Some of them are naming each of their beans, writing the names with marker on the cups in their careful second-grade handwriting. Some crowd the cups, some just have one. Each is unique, just like the child, and Gadreel watches proudly. There’s nothing he cherishes more than being able to give a child their first living thing and teach them how to take care of it.

“Mr. Dree!” One voice stands out amid the cacophony and he heads over to Eden.

“Yes, Eden?” he says as he crouches next to her desk. “Do you have a problem?”

“No, I just wanted to show you my beans. They’re so cute!” He can’t help the smile that crosses his face, the enthusiasm of the green-eyed seven-year-old catching easily.

“They are indeed. Are you ready to give them some sunlight?” She nods and he motions to the windowsill. “Then go set it in the window, where the sun can get at it.” She goes over to the glass and sets the plastic cup down carefully and returns to her desk as Gadreel says, “All right, when you’ve got your beans in there, go ahead and do what Eden did. Take the cups over and set them on the windowsills.”

In groups of twos and threes, the students all place their cups on the sills and then return to their desks. “Very good,” he says, smiling as he leans against his desk. “Now, you’re going to go wash your hands for lunch. Two boys and two girls at a time, starting with the front row and going back. Go.”

When all the children have washed their hands, he has them line up and head down to the cafeteria for lunch. “Eden,” he says, walking backwards at the head of the line. “Turn off the lights and shut the door, okay?” The strawberry-blond girl nods eagerly and waits for everyone to leave before doing as her teacher said, then hurries to catch up to the back of the line.

As the children eat, Gadreel watches the cafeteria and the people in it. The school staggers lunch periods, so that the workers aren’t rushed, so right now it’s mostly elementary students and their teachers.

Then a man clears his throat behind him. “Hey, Mr. Winchester.”

A smile automatically spreads across his face as he stands and faces the man who spoke. “Coach Winchester, a pleasure to see you.”

“How’s your day going?” Sam asks as the two of them move a bit closer to the wall and away from the eager ears of the children.

“It’s going well. The bean plants were a huge hit.”

“Told you they would be.” A huge smile lights up the tall Winchester’s face and Gadreel allows himself to give in to the huge waves of love and admiration he has for his husband. He also can’t deny that he’s looking very attractive with half his hair pulled back to keep it out of his face, no doubt done in the middle of basketball practice this morning.

“Indeed you did,” he says, and then remembers. “Oh, your apple.” He goes back to the table and grabs the apple, then hands it to Sam.

“Thank you.” Sam looks over at the children and notices Eden watching him anxiously. He winks at her and takes a bite of his apple, smiling widely. She smiles widely in return and goes back to her own lunch. “What a cutie.”

Gadreel nods, smiling, slightly entranced by a drop of juice from the apple slipping down Sam’s chin. “Mmhm. And very intelligent.” He breaks his gaze away to look back into his husband’s eyes. “Also, she thinks beans are cute.”

“Adorable.” Sam notices that particular look in Gadreel’s eyes and he smirks. “Walk me to the door so the kids don’t see.”

Normally, Gadreel doesn’t have a problem with public displays of affection. In fact, he’d had to slowly convince Sam that they were okay when they’d first started dating three years ago. But at the school it’s off-limits; unless Sam convinces him to duck behind a wall where no one could see them. Which is what they do now, exchanging a quick but heated kiss before heading their separate ways.

~~~

Gadreel sits cross-legged on the floor with his students, reading to them from a book about farmers. One of the students raises his hand, and Gadreel calls on him. “Yes, Daniel?”

“Are you and Coach Sam together?”  the boy asks. “Like married, like the farmer and his wife.”

The question catches him off guard and his eyebrows raise, but he nods. “Yes, we are.”

“So it’s like Mr. and Mrs. Jones, except you’re Mr. and Mr. Winchester,” another student says.

“Yes, exactly,” he says with a small smile.

“But how do people tell you apart?”

“What do you mean?”

“Like if someone calls for you,” Eden says, joining the conversation. “Hey, Mr. Winchester! How do you know who they’re talking to?”

“Well, usually, if we’re at school, I’m Mr., and he’s Coach. But, and this will amaze you…” He leans forward conspiratorially. “When we’re not at school, we go by just our first names.”

The children gasp and giggle, and he smiles at them, saying, “Yes, Thomas?” when another raises his hand.

“My mom says it’s wrong for two boys or two girls to get married.”

Gadreel sighs, knowing this would have come up eventually. He’ll have to tread carefully, or else a lot of parents will come to the school and give him trouble. “Why does she say it’s wrong?”

“Because a kid has to have a mom and a dad for it to be a good family.”

“Really?” he says, raising an eyebrow. His gaze catches on Eden, who’s chewing her bottom lip anxiously. “Hmm. Raise your hand if you have both parents living at home with you.” Out of twenty-five students, about fifteen raised their hands. “All right. Now, how many live with just their dad, or just their mom?” Another five. “How many with grandparents or other relatives?” Four, and he smiles softly at Eden, nodding to her that it’s okay that she couldn’t raise her hand. “And then there are some who don’t have a mother, or a father, or a grandparent, or anyone. That doesn’t mean that we don’t have good families.

“Eden,” he pauses, smiles again, reassuringly. “You live in an orphanage, and no one there is related to you. But you still think of some of the people there as family, right?”

Her face slowly breaks into a smile, and she nods quickly. “Yeah! Mack and Josie, they’re a little older, but they’re like sisters. And David, he’s only three, but he’s so sweet and he’s like my brother. And Miss Perkins, she’s like a mom sometimes. She takes care of me and loves me like one.”

Gadreel nods, smiling widely at her. “Very good. And the rest of you, who said you didn’t live with both parents, or that you live with other relatives, just because they’re not your mom or your dad doesn’t mean you don’t have a good family, right?” The kids nod, looking at each other. “I didn’t have any parents. My mother died when I was young, and my father left not soon after that. I never knew my grandparents. It was my siblings, and later, my teachers at school, who raised me and took care of me. They were my family.

“See, family isn’t about who gave birth to you, or who has the same blood as you. Family is about who will always be there for you, and who will take care of you when you need it, and who will support you and help you every day of your life that they are able to. That’s what family’s about.” He raises his eyebrows. “So, if two men love each other and are all that I’ve just said, then why can’t they make a good family?”

“I think a kid would be lucky to have you and Coach Sammy as their dads.” The small voice belongs to Eden, and Gadreel can’t help the soft smile that pulls his lips.

“Well, I’m flattered. Thank you, Eden.” He looks up to check the time and realizes that the school day is almost done. “All right, class, it’s time to pack up. Clean up your desks and get your bags, then line up by the door so we can head for the buses.”

~~~

Gadreel leans against the wall in the gym, arms crossed and a faint smile on his lips as he watches Sam do one-on-one training with his athletes. He’s the head coach for the girls’ basketball team, but that hasn’t given him any less renown at the school. In fact, since he started coaching the program six years previously, he’s brought the team up from being ranked near last in the county to winning state the last three years. The girls’ team is the pride of the school, and Sam is far and away the favorite coach because of it.

Add to the fact that he teaches AP and world literature for high school juniors and he’s only about ten years older than the current seniors, and of course he’s the school’s teacher dreamboat. Gadreel often joked that he was lucky he’d managed to grab Sam’s heart before one of his younger and, in his opinion, more attractive students stole him away. Even now, as he watches Sam talk to the girls as they cool down and sees the easy rapport they have, the admiration in the girls’ eyes, he can’t help the twinge of fear that squeezes his chest.

But then Sam turns and sees him, and the huge smile that lights up his face chases all the fear away, and Gadreel returns the smile just as widely, chuckling as Sam winks at him. He claps his hands, sending the girls to the locker room to change and dismissing them for the day. As soon as they’ve all disappeared through the door, but not without giggling and looking back at the two men, Sam comes over to his husband, takes his face in both of his large, warm hands, and kisses him soundly.

Gadreel’s arms automatically wrap around Sam’s waist, pulling him close as his eyes flutter shut and he smiles into the kiss. When he pulls away, he’s breathless and glowing, and when he notices the whispers at the door, he doesn’t even care. He just looks at the girls staring at them and raises an eyebrow. “Really?” he calls out to them, and they freeze. “This isn’t a peep show, ladies.” He glares at them and their eyes go wide before they hurry back into the locker room. Laughing, he turns back to Sam, who’s blushing like crazy. “What?”

“You’ve probably just scandalized half my team,” he says, a smile tugging his lips.

The elementary teacher scoffs. “Are you kidding? Your team started it, they’re the ones hanging out the door to watch their coach kiss his husband.” Sam’s blush, if possible, gets even darker, and Gadreel laughs again. “Come on, Sam. Let’s get home. We’ve gotta talk about adopting Eden, right?” He takes Sam’s hand and leads him out to their little two-seater sports car.

“So you did mean that?” The tall coach is practically dragged along by his husband, and he can’t help laughing. “You wanna adopt your student? Sweetheart, do you know how cliché we are?”

Gadreel laughs as well, letting go of Sam’s hand as he digs his keys out of his pocket. “Very cliché, my darling. But I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

The two of them get into the car, talking the whole way home about Eden and adoption.

~~~

The next Monday, Gadreel paces nervously at the front of the classroom. Sam sits on his desk, legs swinging slightly as he says, “Relax, honey. It’s gonna be fine. She’ll be so happy.”

“I know, I know,” Gadreel says, smiling softly at his husband. “I’m still nervous, though. Can’t help it. I’m excited.”

His husband stands and comes over, taking his hands and squeezing as he smiles. “I know. So am I.” He leans in to kiss him gently, pulling away when he hears footsteps. Together, they look at the door, and in walks Eden, followed by Miss Perkins, the woman who runs the orphanage and has been working with them to get the paperwork done. Eden looks a little nervous, and she immediately blurts, “Am I in trouble?”

Gadreel shakes his head, coming over to her and crouching down. “No, no, you’re not in trouble Eden. You’re the exact opposite.” He looks up at Miss Perkins, who smiles and nods at him, before looking back to Eden. “Sam and I want to adopt you.”

The girl’s eyes go wide and her mouth drops open. “You…” She looks at Sam, who’s moved closer to lean against the wall, smiling widely. “You wanna adopt me?” Her voice squeaks as she finishes the sentence. “Really?”

Her teacher nods, smiling. “Really. We want you to be a part of our family. Would you like that?”

She doesn’t hesitate at all. “Of course!” She looks up at Miss Perkins. “I get to be their daughter, Miss Perkins?”

The woman smiles and nods. “We’ve already started the process. It shouldn’t be long before it’s done. They’re going to be your dads.”

Eden squeals and smiles. “I’m so happy!” Gadreel holds his arms open and she runs into them, hugging him tight. Then she looks at Sam, and he kneels next to Gadreel so she can hug him too.

~~~

Four years later, a dark blue minivan pulls into the parking lot behind the gym and parks, the doors opening and spilling out a huge family. Two teenage girls, one blond and one dark, climb out and sling their messenger bags over their shoulders, already busy on their phones. “Hey, Mack, Josie, hold up a sec,” Sam says as he gets out of the driver’s seat. They look up simultaneously, and he smiles. “Remember what we studied for your lit test today?”

“Yeah, Dad,” Mack says, raising her eyebrow. “We only went over it like a million times.”

“Don’t worry,” Josie adds, smiling. “We’ve got it down. See you at practice,  _ Coach _ .” Sam rolls his eyes at her teasing tone and pulls them into a hug, kissing the tops of their heads. Gadreel blows them kisses from the other side of the van, which they return before walking off to class. Then he turns to the two other children standing beside him.

Eden shuts the door of the van and then looks up at Gadreel, her curly hair barely restrained by the double French braids he’d done for her this morning. “You ready for the day, sweetie? You’ve got a paper due, right?”

She nods and reaches back to pat her backpack. “Yep! I’ve got it printed out already.”

“Good girl. C’mere.” He opens his arms and she immediately hugs him, breathing in the smell she’d grown so used to since the first time she’d hugged him. He kisses the top of her head and smiles. “Love you. You’ll do great. Mrs. Harris will be very pleased with that paper you wrote.”

“Love you too. I know.” She smiles and kisses his cheek in return before turning to the little boy standing beside her. “Bye, David. See you at lunch, okay?” He nods and she hugs him before hugging Sam and heading inside.

Sam comes over and crouches by David. “Gonna kill it in dodgeball today, bud?”

The boy smiles and nods. “Yes, Daddy.”

“Good.” He kisses his son’s forehead. “I’ll see you then.” He stands and smiles at his husband. “Have a good day, honey.”

“You too, love,” Gadreel answers, kissing his cheek. Sam walks off to the gym and the second grade teacher looks down at his son, holding out his hand. “Ready, David?”

David takes his hand and nods. “Yeah.” They start to walk to his classroom. “What are we doing today, Papa?”

Gadreel smiles. “Today, we’re going to learn how to grow our own bean plants.”


End file.
